| Beslan school siege | |
|---|---|
| Part ofTerrorism in Russia,Chechen–Russian conflict andSecond Chechen War | |
    | |
 Interactive map of Beslan school siege | |
| Location | 43°11′3″N44°32′27″E / 43.18417°N 44.54083°E /43.18417; 44.54083 Beslan,North Ossetia–Alania, Russia |
| Date | 1–3 September 2004 (UTC+3) |
| Target | School No. 1,Beslan |
Attack type | Mass murder,suicide bombing,siege,shootout,mass shooting |
| Weapons | Assault rifles,suicide belts |
| Deaths | At least 334 (excluding 31 terrorists)[1] |
| Injured | 800+ |
| Perpetrators |  Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade |
| 32 | |
| Motive | SeeMotives and demands |
TheBeslan school siege, also referred to as theBeslan school hostage crisis or theBeslan massacre,[2][3][4] was a terrorist attack that occurred from 1 September 2004 to 3 September 2004. It lasted three days, and involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 people as hostages, including 777 children,[5] ending with the deaths of 334 people, 186 of them children,[6] as well as 31 of the attackers.[1] It is considered the deadliestschool shooting in history.[7]
The crisis began when a group of armed terrorists occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town ofBeslan,North Ossetia (anautonomous republic in theNorth Caucasus region ofRussia), on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were members of theRiyad-us Saliheen, sent by the Chechen warlordShamil Basayev, who demanded Russia withdraw from and recognize the independence ofChechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building.
The event had security and political repercussions in Russia, leading to a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in theKremlin and strengthening the powers of thePresident of Russia.[8] Criticisms of the Russian government's management of the crisis have persisted, including allegations ofdisinformation and censorship in news media as well as questions about journalistic freedom,[9] negotiations with the terrorists, allocation of responsibility for the eventual outcome and the use of excessive force.[10][11][12][13][14]
School No. 1 was one of seven schools in Beslan, a town of about 35,000 people in the Republic ofNorth Ossetia–Alania in Russia'sCaucasus. The school, located next to the district police station, housed approximately 60 teachers and more than 800 students.[15] Its gymnasium, where most of the hostages were held for 52 hours, was a recent addition, measuring 10 metres (33 ft) wide and 25 metres (82 ft) long.[16] There were reports that men disguised as repairmen had smuggled weapons and explosives into the school during July 2004, a fact that the authorities later denied; however, several witnesses have since testified they were forced to help their captors remove the weapons from caches hidden in the school.[17][18] There were also claims that a "sniper's nest" on the sports-hall roof had been set up in advance.[19]
The attack on the school took place on 1 September, the traditional start of the Russian school year, referred to as "First Bell" orKnowledge Day.[20][7] On this day, children, accompanied by their parents and other relatives, attend ceremonies hosted by their school.[21] Because of the Knowledge Day festivities, the number of people in the schools was considerably higher than normal. Early in the morning, a group of several dozen heavily armed nationalist guerrillas left a forest encampment located in the vicinity of the village of Psedakh in the neighbouring Republic ofIngushetia, east of North Ossetia and west of war-torn Chechnya. The terrorists wore green military camouflage and blackbalaclava masks, and in some cases were also wearing explosive belts and explosive underwear. On the way to Beslan, on a country road near the North Ossetian village of Khurikau, they captured an Ingush police officer, Major Sultan Gurazhev.[22] Gurazhev was left in a vehicle after the terrorists had reached Beslan and then ran toward the schoolyard[23] and went to the district police department to inform them of the situation, adding that his duty handgun and badge had been taken.[24]
At 09:11 local time, the terrorists arrived at Beslan in aGAZelle police van and aGAZ-66 military truck. Many witnesses and independent experts claim that there were two groups of attackers, and that the first group was already at the school when the second group arrived by truck.[25] At first, some at the school mistook the militants for Russian special forces practicing a security drill.[26] However, the attackers soon began shooting in the air and forcing everyone from the school grounds into the building. During the initial chaos, up to 50 people managed to flee and alert authorities about the situation.[27] A number of people also managed to hide in the boiler room.[16] After an exchange of gunfire against the police and an armed local civilian, in which reportedly one attacker was killed and two were wounded, the militants seized the school building.[28] Reports of the death toll from this shootout ranged from two to eight people, while more than a dozen people were injured.
The attackers took approximately 1,100 hostages.[10][29] The number of hostages was initially downplayed by the government to the 200–400 range, and then for an unknown reason announced to be exactly 354.[9] In 2005, the government's total was put at 1,128.[11] The militants herded their captives into the school's gym and confiscated all of their mobile phones under threat of death.[30] They ordered the hostages to speak in Russian and only when first spoken to. When a father named Ruslan Betrozov stood to calm people and repeated the rules in the local language ofOssetic, a gunman approached him, asked Betrozov if he was done, and then shot him in the head. Another father named Vadim Bolloyev, who refused to kneel, was also shot by a captor and then bled to death.[31] Their bodies were dragged from the sports hall, leaving a trail of blood later visible in the video made by the terrorists.
After gathering the hostages in the gym, the attackers singled out 15–20 adults who they thought were the strongest among the male teachers, school employees and fathers, and took them into a corridor next to the cafeteria on the second floor, where an explosive belt on one of the female bombers detonated, killing another female bomber (it was also claimed the second woman died from a bullet wound)[32] and several of the selected hostages, as well as mortally injuring one male terrorist.[33] The surviving hostages from this group were then ordered to lie down and were shot with anautomatic rifle by another gunman; all but one of them were killed.[34][35][36][37][38] Karen Mdinaradze, theFC Alania team cameraman, survived the explosion as well as the shooting; when discovered to be still alive, he was allowed to return to the sports hall, where he lost consciousness.[31][39] The militants then forced other hostages to throw the bodies out of the building and to wash the blood off the floor.[40] One of these hostages, Aslan Kudzayev, escaped by jumping out of the window; the authorities briefly detained him as a suspected terrorist.[31]
A security cordon was soon established around the school, consisting of the Russian police (militsiya),Internal Troops,Russian Army forces,Spetsnaz (including the eliteAlpha andVympel units of theRussian Federal Security Service (FSB)), and theOMON special units of theRussian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). A line of three apartment buildings facing the school gym was evacuated and taken over by the special forces. The perimeter that they made was within 225 metres (738 ft) of the school, inside the range of the militants' grenade launchers.[41] No firefighting equipment was in position and, despite the previous experiences of the 2002Moscow theater hostage crisis, there were few ambulances ready.[16] The chaos was worsened by the presence of Ossetian volunteer militiamen (opolchentsy) and armed civilians among the crowds who had gathered at the scene,[42] altogether totaling perhaps as many as 5,000.[16]
The attackers mined the gym and the rest of the building withimprovised explosive devices (IEDs) and surrounded it withtripwires. In a further bid to deter rescue attempts, they threatened to kill 50 hostages for every one of their own members killed by the police, and to kill 20 hostages for every gunman injured.[16] They also threatened to blow up the school if government forces attacked. To avoid being overwhelmed by agas attack as were their comrades in the 2002 Moscow hostage crisis, insurgents quickly smashed the school's windows. The captors prevented hostages from eating and drinking (calling this a "hunger strike") until North Ossetia's presidentAlexander Dzasokhov would arrive to negotiate with them.[40] However, the FSB set up its own crisis headquarters from which Dzasokhov was excluded, and threatened to arrest him if he tried to go to the school.[10][43]
The Russian government announced that it would not use force to rescue the hostages, and negotiations toward a peaceful resolution took place on the first and second days, at first led byLeonid Roshal, a pediatrician whom the hostage-takers had reportedly requested by name. Roshal had helped negotiate the release of children in the 2002 Moscow siege, but had also given advice to the Russian security services as they prepared to storm the theatre, for which he received theHero of Russia award; however, a witness statement indicated that the Russian negotiators confused Roshal withVladimir Rushailo, a Russian security official.[44] According toState Duma member Yuri Savelyev's report, the official ("civilian") headquarters sought a peaceful resolution while the secret ("heavy") headquarters set up by the FSB was preparing the assault. Savelyev wrote that, in many ways, the "heavies" restricted the actions of the "civilians", in particular in their attempts to negotiate with the militants.[45]
At Russia's request, a special meeting of theUnited Nations Security Council was convened on the evening of 1 September 2004, at which the council members demanded "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages of the terrorist attack."[46] U.S. presidentGeorge W. Bush made a statement offering "support in any form" to Russia.[47]
On 2 September 2004, negotiations between Roshal and the militants proved unsuccessful, and they refused to allow food, water or medicine to be taken in for the hostages or for the dead bodies to be removed from the front of the school.[31] At noon, FSB First Deputy Director Colonel GeneralVladimir Pronichev showed Dzasokhov a decree signed by prime ministerMikhail Fradkov appointing the North Ossetian FSB chief, Major General Valery Andreyev, as head of the operational headquarters.[48] However, in April 2005 aMoscow News journalist received photocopies of the interviewprotocols of Dzasokhov and Andreyev by investigators, revealing that two headquarters had been formed in Beslan: a formal one, upon which was laid all responsibility, and a secret one, which made the real decisions, and at which Andreyev had never been in charge.[49]
The Russian government downplayed the numbers, repeatedly stating there were only 354 hostages; this reportedly angered the hostage-takers, who further mistreated their captives.[50][51] Several officials also said there appeared to be only 15 to 20 militants in the school.[15] The crisis was met with a near-total silence fromPresident of RussiaVladimir Putin and the rest of Russia's political leaders.[52] Only on the second day did Putin make his first public comment on the siege during a meeting in Moscow with KingAbdullah II of Jordan: "Our main task, of course, is to save the lives and health of those who became hostages. All actions by our forces involved in rescuing the hostages will be dedicated exclusively to this task."[53] It was the only public statement by Putin about the crisis until the day after it ended.[52] In protest, several people at the scene raised signs reading: "Putin! Release our children! Meet their demands!" and "Putin! There are at least 800 hostages!" The locals also said that they would not allow any storming or "poisoning of their children", an allusion to theMoscow hostage crisis chemical agent.[24]
In the afternoon, the gunmen allowed formerpresident of IngushetiaRuslan Aushev to enter the school building and agreed to personally release to him 11 nursing women and all 15 babies.[37][54] The women's older children were left behind and one mother refused to leave, so Aushev carried out her youngest child instead.[34] The terrorists gave Aushev a videotape made in the school and a note with demands from their purported leader, Shamil Basayev, who was not present in Beslan. The existence of the note was kept secret by Russian authorities, while the tape was declared as being empty (which was later proved incorrect). It was falsely announced that the militants had made no demands. In the note, Basayev demanded recognition of a "formal independence for Chechnya" in the framework of theCommonwealth of Independent States. He also said that although the Chechen separatists "had played no part" in the1999 Russian apartment bombings, they would now publicly take responsibility for them if needed.[10] Some Russian officials and state-controlled media later criticised Aushev for entering the school, accusing him of colluding with the terrorists.[55]
The lack of food and water took a toll upon the young children, many of whom were forced to stand for long periods in the hot, tightly packed gym. Many children disrobed because of the sweltering heat in the gymnasium, which led to false rumors of sexual impropriety. Many children fainted, and parents feared that these children would die. Some hostages drank their own urine. Occasionally, the militants (many of whom took off their masks) took out some of the unconscious children and poured water on their heads before returning them to the sports hall. Later in the day, some adults also started to faint from fatigue and thirst. Because of the conditions in the gym, when the explosions and gun battle began on the third day, many of the surviving children were so fatigued that they were barely able to flee.[30][56]
Around 15:30, two grenades were detonated by the militants against security forces outside the school approximately ten minutes apart,[57] setting a police car on fire and injuring one officer,[58] but Russian forces did not return fire. As the day and night wore on, the combination of stress and sleep deprivation—and possibly drug withdrawal[59][unreliable source?]—made the hostage-takers increasingly hysterical and unpredictable. The crying of the children irritated them, and on several occasions crying children and their mothers were threatened that they would be shot if the crying did not cease.[26] Russian authorities claimed that the terrorists had listened to German heavy metal groupRammstein on personal stereos during the siege to keep themselves "edgy and fired up".[60]
Overnight, a police officer was injured by shots fired from the school. Talks were broken off, resuming the next day.[53]
Early on the third day, Ruslan Aushev, Alexander Dzasokhov, Taymuraz Mamsurov (North Ossetia's parliament chairman) and First Deputy Chairman Izrail Totoonti together made contact with the president of theChechen Republic of Ichkeria,Aslan Maskhadov.[43] Totoonti said that both Maskhadov and his Western-based emissaryAkhmed Zakayev declared that they were ready to fly to Beslan to negotiate with the militants, which was later confirmed by Zakayev.[61] Totoonti said that Maskhadov's sole demand was his unhindered passage to the school; however, the assault began one hour after the agreement for his arrival was made.[62][63] He also mentioned that, for three days, journalists fromAl Jazeera television offered to participate in the negotiations and enter the school, even as hostages, but were told "their services were not needed by anyone."[64]
Russian presidential advisor, former police general and ethnic ChechenAslambek Aslakhanov was also said to be close to a breakthrough in the secret negotiations. By the time that he left Moscow on the second day, Aslakhanov had accumulated the names of more than 700 well-known Russian figures who were volunteering to enter the school as hostages in exchange for the release of the children. Aslakhanov said that the hostage-takers agreed to allow him to enter the school the next day at 15:00. However, the storming had begun two hours before.[65]
Around 13:00 on 3 September, the militants allowed fourMinistry of Emergency Situations medical workers in two ambulances to remove 20 bodies from the school grounds, and to bring the corpse of the killed terrorist to the school. However, at 13:03, when the paramedics approached the school, an explosion in the gymnasium was heard. The terrorists then opened fire on the paramedics, killing two.[40] The other two took cover behind their vehicle.
The second explosion, described as "strange-sounding", was heard 22 seconds later.[16] At 13:05, a fire started on the roof of the gymnasium, and soon the burning rafters and parts of the roof fell onto the hostages below, many of whom were injured but still alive.[45] Eventually, the entire roof collapsed, filling the room with fire. The flames reportedly killed some 160 people, more than half of the total hostage fatalities.[19]
There are several conflicting opinions regarding the source and nature of the explosions:
| Storming of Beslan school | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofTerrorism in Russia | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Vladimir Putin | Vladimir Khodov †Ruslan Khuchbarov † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown number of troops | 32 militants[41] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| At least 334 killed (excluding 31 terrorists)[1] 700+ wounded[76] | |||||||
Part of the sports hall wall was demolished by the explosions, allowing some hostages to escape.[16] The militants opened fire, and the military returned fire. A number of people were killed in the crossfire.[77] Russian officials say that militants shot hostages as they ran and that the military fired back.[66] The government asserted that once the shooting started, troops had no choice but to storm the building. However, some accounts by the town's residents have contradicted this official version of events.[78]
Police lieutenant colonel Elbrus Nogayev, whose wife and daughter died in the school, said, "I heard a command saying, 'Stop shooting! Stop shooting!' while other troops' radios said, 'Attack!'"[41] As the fighting began, oil-company president and negotiatorMikhail Gutseriyev, an ethnic Ingush, phoned the hostage-takers and heard "You tricked us!" in response. Five hours later, Gutseriyev and his interlocutor reportedly had their last conversation, during which the man said, "The blame is yours and the Kremlin's."[65]
According to Torshin, the order to start the operation was given by the head of the North Ossetian FSB, Valery Andreyev.[79] However, statements by both Andreyev and Dzasokhov indicated that it was FSB deputy directors Vladimir Pronichev and Vladimir Anisimov who were actually in charge of the Beslan operation.[63] General Andreyev also told North Ossetia's Supreme Court that the decision to use heavy weapons during the assault was made by the head of the FSB's Special Operations Center, Colonel General Aleksandr Tikhonov.[80]
A chaotic battle broke out as the special forces fought to enter the school. The forces included the assault groups of the FSB and the associated troops of the Russian Army and the Russian Interior Ministry, supported by a number ofT-72 tanks from Russia's58th Army (commandeered by Tikhonov from the military on 2 September),BTR-80 wheeled armoured personnel carriers and armed helicopters, including at least oneMi-24 attack helicopter.[81] Many local civilians also joined the battle, having brought their own weapons, and at least one of the armed volunteers is known to have been killed. Alleged crime figure Aslan Gagiyev claimed to be among them. At the same time, regular conscripted soldiers reportedly fled the scene as the fighting began. Civilian witnesses claimed that the local police also panicked, sometimes firing in the wrong direction.[82][83]
At least three, but as many as nine, powerfulShmel rockets were fired at the school from the special forces' positions (three[11] or nine[84] empty disposable tubes were later found on the rooftops of nearby apartment blocks). The use of theShmel rockets, classified in Russia as flamethrowers and in the West asthermobaric weapons, was initially denied, but later admitted by the government.[13][85] A report by an aide to the military prosecutor of the North Ossetian garrison stated thatRPG-26 rocket-propelled grenades were used as well.[86] The terrorists also used grenade launchers, firing at the Russian positions in the apartment buildings.[16]
According to a military prosecutor, a BTR armoured vehicle drove close to the school and opened fire from its 14.5×114mmKPV heavy machine gun at the windows on the second floor.[11] Eyewitnesses (among them Totoonti[64] and Kesayev[74]) and journalists saw two T-72 tanks advance on the school that afternoon, at least one of which fired its 125 mm main gun several times.[11] Later during the trial, tank commander Viktor Kindeyev testified he provided the tank to the officer of the FSB and at around 21:00, the tank fired "oneblank shot and six antipersonnel-high explosive shells" on orders from the FSB.[87] The use of tanks and armoured personnel carriers was eventually admitted to by Lieutenant GeneralViktor Sobolev, commander of the 58th Army.[81] Another witness cited in the Kesayev report claims that he had jumped onto the turret of a tank in an attempt to prevent it from firing on the school.[74] Scores of hostages were moved by the militants from the burning sports hall into other parts of the school, in particular the cafeteria, where they were forced to stand at windows ashuman shields. Many of them were shot by troops outside, according to the survivors (including Kudzeyeva,[88] Kusrayeva[89] and Naldikoyeva[41]). Savelyev estimated that 106 to 110 hostages died after having been moved to the cafeteria.[90]
By 15:00, two hours after the assault began, Russian troops claimed control of most of the school. However, fighting was still continuing on the grounds as evening fell, including resistance from a group of militants holding out in the school's basement.[91] During the battle, a group of some 13 militants broke through the military cordon and took refuge nearby. Several of them were believed to have entered a local two-story building, which was destroyed by tanks and flamethrowers around 21:00, according to the Ossetian committee's findings (Kesayev Report).[92] Another group of militants appeared to head back over the railway, chased by helicopters into the town.[16]
Firefighters, who were called by Andreyev two hours after the fire had started,[4] were not prepared to battle the blaze that raged in the gymnasium. One fire truck crew arrived after two hours on their own initiative, but with only 200 liters (53 U.S. gal) of water, and were unable to connect to the nearby hydrants.[11][93] The first water truck came at 15:28, nearly two and a half hours after the start of the fire;[45] the second fire engine arrived at 15:43.[11] Few ambulances were available to transport the hundreds of injured victims, who were mostly driven to the hospital in private cars.[41] One suspected militant was reportedlylynched on the scene by a mob of civilians.[94][unreliable source?] An unarmed militant was captured alive by the OMON troops while trying to hide under a truck (he was later identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev).[95] Some of the dead insurgents appeared to have been mutilated by the commandos.[11]
Sporadic explosions and gunfire continued during the night despite reports that all resistance by militants had been suppressed,[96] until some 12 hours after the first explosions.[97] Early the next day, Putin ordered the borders of North Ossetia closed while some of the terrorists were apparently still being pursued.[96]
After the conclusion of the crisis, many of the injured died before patients were sent to better-equipped facilities inVladikavkaz as the only hospital in Beslan was unprepared to deal with the casualties.[98] There was an inadequate supply of hospital beds, medication and neurosurgery equipment.[99] Relatives were not allowed to visit hospitals where the wounded were treated, and doctors were not allowed to use their mobile phones.[100][101]
The day after the storming, bulldozers gathered the debris of the building, including the body parts of the victims, and removed it to a garbage dump.[10][11] The first of the many funerals was conducted on 4 September, the day after the final assault, with more following soon after, including a mass burial of 120 people.[102] The local cemetery was too small and had to be expanded to an adjacent plot of land to accommodate the dead. Three days after the siege, 180 people were still missing.[103] Many survivors remained severely traumatised and at least one female former hostage committed suicide after returning home, shortly after identifying the body of her child.[104]
In his only visit to Beslan, Putin appeared during a hurried trip to the Beslan hospital in the early hours of 4 September to see several of the wounded victims.[105] He was later criticised for not meeting the families of victims.[96] After returning to Moscow, he ordered a two-day period of national mourning on 6 and 7 September. In his televised speech, Putin said: "We showed ourselves to be weak. And the weak get beaten."[40] On the second day of mourning, an estimated 135,000 people joined a government-organised rally against terrorism inRed Square in Moscow.[106] In Saint Petersburg an estimated 40,000 people gathered inPalace Square.[107]
Increased security measures were introduced to Russian cities after the crisis. More than 10,000 people without proper documents were detained by Moscow police in a "terrorist hunt". ColonelMagomed Tolboyev, acosmonaut andHero of the Russian Federation, was attacked and brutally beaten by a Moscow police patrol because of his Chechen-sounding name.[108][109] The Russian public appeared to generally support increased security measures; a 16 September 2004Levada-Center opinion poll found 58% of Russians supporting stricter counterterrorism laws and the death penalty for terrorism, while 33% would support banning all Chechens from entering Russian cities.[110][111]
In the wake of Beslan, the government proceeded to toughen laws on terrorism and expand the powers of law-enforcement agencies.[8]
In addition, Putin signed a law that replaced the direct election of the heads of thefederal subjects of Russia with a system in which they are proposed by the president of Russia and approved or disapproved by the elected legislative bodies of the federal subjects.[112] The election system for the Russian parliament was also repeatedly amended, eliminating the election of State Duma members by single-mandate districts.[113] The Kremlin consolidated its control over the Russian media and increasingly attacked non-governmental organisations (especially those foreign-funded).[114]
The raid on Beslan had more to do with the Ingush involved than with the Chechens, but it was highly symbolic for both regions. The Ossetes and Ingush have a conflict over ownership of thePrigorodny District that was inflamed by the1944 Stalinist purges and the1992–1993 ethnic cleansing of Ingush by Ossetes, with assistance from the Russian military. At the time of the raid, more than 40,000 Ingush refugees lived in tent camps in Ingushetia and Chechnya.[115] The Beslan school itself had been used against the Ingush: in 1992, the gym was used as a pen to round up Ingush during the ethnic cleansing by the Ossetes. For the Chechens, the motive was revenge for the destruction of their homes and families; Beslan was one of the sites from which federal air raids were launched into Chechnya.[116][117]
Upon learning that many children were killed by a terrorist group that included Chechens, many Chechens felt shame. A spokesman for Chechen independence cause stated: "A bigger blow could not have been dealt on us ... People around the world will think that Chechens are beasts and monsters if they could attack children."[118]
By 7 September 2004, Russian officials stated that 334 people had died, including 156 children; at that point, 200 people remained missing or unidentified.[119] The Torshin Report stated that ultimately no bodies remained unidentified.[120] Locals stated that more than 200 of those killed were found with burns, and 100 or more of them were burned alive.[11][41] In 2005, two hostages died from injuries sustained in the incident, as did a hostage in August 2006. A 33-year-old librarian, Yelena Avdonina, succumbed to ahematoma on 8 December 2006. At that timeThe Washington Post stated that the death toll was 334, excluding terrorists.[1] The city of Beslan states a death toll of 335 on its website.[121] The death toll includes 186 children.[6]
| Category of fatality | Number of fatalities |
|---|---|
| Children aged 1 to 17 | 186 |
| Parents, friends and other guests | 112 |
| Teachers and school staff | 17 |
| FSB employees | 10 |
| Civilian rescuers | 6 |
| Employees ofMoES | 2 |
| Employees ofMoIA | 1 |
| Total | 334 |
Russia'sMinister of Health and Social ReformMikhail Zurabov said that the total number injured in the crisis exceeded 1,200.[122] The exact number of people who received ambulatory assistance immediately after the crisis is not known, but is estimated to be around 700 (753 according to the U.N.[5]). Moscow-based military analystPavel Felgenhauer concluded on 7 September 2004 that 90% of the surviving hostages had sustained injuries. At least 437 people, including 221 children, were hospitalised; 197 children were taken to the Children's Republican Clinical Hospital in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz, and 30 were incardiopulmonary resuscitation units incritical condition. Another 150 people were transferred to the Vladikavkaz Emergency Hospital. Sixty-two people, including 12 children, were treated in two local hospitals in Beslan, while six children with severe injuries were flown to Moscow for specialist treatment.[123] The majority of the children were treated for burns,gunshot injuries,shrapnel wounds and mutilation caused by explosions.[124] Some had limbs amputated and eyes removed, and many children were permanently disabled. One month after the attack, 240 people (160 of them children) were still being treated in hospitals in Vladikavkaz and Beslan.[123][125] Surviving children and parents have receivedpsychological treatment at Vladikavkaz Rehabilitation Centre.[126]
One of the hostages, a physical education teacher calledYanis Kanidis (aCaucasus Greek, originally fromGeorgia) who was killed in the siege, saved the lives of many children. One of the new schools built in Beslan was subsequently named in his honour.[citation needed]
The operation also became the bloodiest in the history of the Russian anti-terrorist special forces. Ten members of the special forces died (7 Vympel and 3 Alpha members).[127][128] A commando called Vyacheslav Bocharov was believed to have been killed, but proved to be seriously wounded in the face but alive when he regained consciousness and managed to write down his name.[129]
The fatalities included all three commanders of the assault groups: Colonel Oleg Ilyin and Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Razumovsky of Vympel, and Major Alexander Perov of Alpha.[130] At least 30 commandos suffered serious wounds.[131]
Initially, the identity and origin of the attackers was unclear. It was widely assumed from Day Two that they were separatists from nearby Chechnya, though Putin's Chechen aide Aslambek Aslakhanov denied it, saying "they were not Chechens. When I started talking with them inChechen, they had answered: 'We do not understand; speak Russian.'"[132] Freed hostages said that the hostage-takers spoke Russian withaccents typical ofCaucasians.[16]
Though Putin had rarely hesitated to blame Chechen separatists for past acts of terrorism, he avoided linking the attack with theSecond Chechen War. Instead, he blamed the crisis on the "direct intervention of international terrorism", ignoring the nationalist roots of the crisis.[133] Russian government sources initially claimed that nine of the militants in Beslan wereArabs and one was a black African (called "anegro" by Andreyev),[134][135] though only two Arabs were later identified.[40] Independent analysts such as Moscow political commentatorAndrei Piontkovsky said that Putin tried to minimise the number and scale of Chechen terrorist attacks rather than exaggerate them as he had done in the past.[22] Putin appeared to connect the events to the U.S.-ledWar on Terror,[77] but at the same time accused the West of indulging terrorists.[136]
On 17 September 2004, Chechen terrorist leaderShamil Basayev, operating autonomously from the rest of theNorth Caucasian terrorist movement, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Beslan school siege, boasting that the siege only cost 8,000euros.[137] The event was strikingly similar to theChechen raid on Budyonnovsk in 1995 and theMoscow theatre hostage crisis of 2002, incidents in which hundreds of Russian civilians were held hostage by Chechen terrorists led by Basayev. Basayev said that his Riyad-us Saliheen "brigade of martyrs" had carried out the attack and also claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist bombings in Russia in the weeks before the Beslan crisis. He said that he had originally planned to seize at least one school in either Moscow or Saint Petersburg, but lack of funds forced him to pickNorth Ossetia, "the Russian garrison in the North Caucasus." Basayev blamed the Russian authorities for "a terrible tragedy" in Beslan.[138] Basayev claimed that he had miscalculated the Kremlin's determination to end the crisis by all means possible.[8] He said he was "cruelly mistaken" and that he was "not delighted by what happened there", but also added to be "planning more Beslan-type operations in the future because we are forced to do so."[139] However, it was the last major act of terrorism in Russia until 2009, as Basayev was soon persuaded to give upindiscriminate attacks by new Chechen leaderAbdul-Halim Sadulayev,[140] who made Basayev his second-in-command but banned hostage-taking, kidnapping for ransom and operations specifically targeting civilians.[141]
Chechen separatist leaderAslan Maskhadov denied that his forces were involved in the siege, calling it "a blasphemy" for which "there is no justification". Maskhadov described the perpetrators of Beslan as "Madmen" driven out of their senses by Russian acts of brutality.[142] He condemned the action and all attacks against civilians via a statement issued by his envoyAkhmed Zakayev in London, blaming it on what he called a radical local group,[143] and he agreed to the North Ossetian proposition to act as a negotiator. Later, he also called on western governments to initiate peace talks between Russia and Chechnya and added to "categorically refute all accusations by the Russian government that President Maskhadov had any involvement in the Beslan event."[144] Putin responded that he would not negotiate with "child-killers",[107] comparing the calls for negotiations with theappeasement of Hitler,[136] and put a $10 millionbounty on Maskhadov (the same amount as for Basayev).[145] Maskhadov was killed by Russian commandos in Chechnya on 8 March 2005[146] and buried at an undisclosed location.[147]
Shortly after the crisis, official Russian sources stated that the attackers were part of a supposed international group led by Basayev that included a number of Arabs with connections toal-Qaeda, and claimed that they had picked up phone calls inArabic from the Beslan school toSaudi Arabia and another undisclosed Middle Eastern country.[148]
Two British-Algerians, Osman Larussi andYacine Benalia, were initially named as having actively participated in the attack. Another British-Algerian,Kamel Rabat Bouralha, arrested while trying to leave Russia immediately following the attack as he was suspected to be a key organiser. All three were linked to theFinsbury Park Mosque ofNorth London.[149] Allegations of al-Qaeda involvement were not repeated by the Russian government.[19] Larussi and Benalia are not named in the Torshin Report and were never identified by Russian authorities as suspects in the Beslan attack.[150]
The following people were named by the Russian government as planners and financiers of the attack:
In November 2004, 28-year-old Akhmed Merzhoyev and 16-year-old Marina Korigova ofSagopshi,Ingushetia were arrested by Russian authorities in connection with the Beslan attack. Merzhoyev was charged with providing food and equipment to the terrorists, and Korigova was charged with having possession of a phone that Tsechoyev had phoned multiple times.[152] Korigova was released when her defence attorney showed that she was given the phone by an acquaintance after the crisis.[153]
Russian negotiators say that the Beslan militants never explicitly stated their demands, although they did have notes handwritten by one of the hostages on a school notebook, in which they spelled out demands of full Russian troop withdrawal from Chechnya and recognition of Chechen independence.
The hostage-takers were reported to have made the following demands on 1 September 11:00–11:30 in a letter sent along with a hostageER doctor:[154]
Dzasokhov and Zyazikov did not come to Beslan; Dzasokhov later claimed that he was forcibly stopped by "a very high-ranking general from the Interior Ministry [who] said, 'I have received orders to arrest you if you try to go'."[43] The stated reason why Zyazikov did not arrive was that he had been "sick".[65] Aushev, Zyazikov's predecessor at the post of Ingushetia's president, who was forced to resign by Putin in 2002, entered the school and secured the release of 26 hostages.
Aslakhanov said that the hostage-takers also demanded the release of some 28 to 30 suspects detained in the crackdown following theterrorist raids in Ingushetia earlier in June.[15][19]
Later, Basayev said the terrorists also demanded a letter of resignation from President Putin.[138]
According to the official version of events, 32 militants participated directly in the seizure, one of whom was taken alive while the rest were killed on the spot. The number and identity of hostage-takers remains a controversial topic, fuelled by the often-contradictory government statements and official documents. The 3–4 September government statements said that a total of 26–27 militants were killed during the siege.[96] At least four militants, including two women, died prior to the Russian storming of the school.
Many of the surviving hostages and eyewitnesses claim there were many more captors, some of whom may have escaped. It was also initially claimed that three terrorists were captured alive, including their leaderVladimir Khodov and a female militant.[155] Witness testimonies during the Kulayev trial reported the presence of a number of apparentlySlavic-, unaccented Russian- and "perfect" Ossetian-speaking individuals among the militants who were not seen among the bodies of those killed by Russian security forces.[86] The unknown men (and a woman, according to one testimony) included a man with a red beard who was reportedly issuing orders to the kidnappers' leaders, and whom the hostages were forbidden to look at. He was possibly the militant known only as "Fantomas", an ethnic Russian who served as a bodyguard to Shamil Basayev.[19][86][156]
According to Basayev (who called the attack "Nord-West" in allusion toNord-Ost), "Thirty-threemujahideen took part in Nord-West. Two of them were women. We prepared four [women] but I sent two of them to Moscow on August 24. They then boardedthe two airplanes that blew up. In the group there were 12 Chechen men, two Chechen women, nine Ingush, three Russians, two Arabs, two Ossetians, oneTartar, oneKabardinian and oneGuran."[157]
Basayev further said an FSB agent (Khodov) had been sent undercover to the terrorists to persuade them to carry out an attack on a target in North Ossetia's capital, Vladikavkaz, and that the group was allowed to enter the region with ease because the FSB planned to capture them at their destination in Vladikavkaz. He also claimed that an unnamed hostage-taker had survived the siege and managed to escape.[13]
On 6 September 2004, the names and identities of seven of the assailants became known, after forensic work over the weekend and interviews with surviving hostages and a captured assailant. The forensic tests also established that 21 of the hostage-takers took heroin,[158] methamphetamine as well asmorphine in a normally lethal amount;[159][160] the investigation cited the use of drugs as a reason for the militants' ability to continue fighting despite being badly wounded and presumably in great pain. In November 2004, Russian officials announced that 27 of the 32 hostage-takers had been identified. However, in September 2005, the lead prosecutor against Nur-Pashi Kulayev stated that only 22 of the 32 bodies of the captors had been identified,[161] leading to further confusion over which identities have been confirmed.
Most of the suspects, aged 20–35, were identified as Ingush or residents of Ingushetia (some of them Chechen refugees). At least five of the suspected hostage-takers were declared dead by Russian authorities before the seizure, while eight were known to have been previously arrested and then released, in some cases shortly before the Beslan attack.
The male hostage-takers were tentatively identified by the Russian government as:
In April 2005, the identity of theshahidka female militants was revealed:[183]
The captured suspect, 24-year-old Nur-Pashi Kulayev, born in Chechnya, was identified by former hostages as one of the hostage-takers. The state-controlledChannel One showed fragments of Kulayev's interrogation in which he said his group was led by a Chechnya-born man nicknamedPolkovnik and by the North Ossetia native Vladimir Khodov. According to Kulayev,Polkovnik shot another militant and detonated two female suicide bombers because they objected to capturing children.[184]
In May 2005, Kulayev was a defendant in a court in the Republic of North Ossetia. He was charged with murder, terrorism, kidnapping, and other crimes and pleaded guilty on seven of the counts;[185] many former hostages denounced the trial as a "smoke screen" and "farce".[55] Some of the relatives of the victims, who used the trial in their attempts to accuse the authorities, even called for apardon for Kulayev so he could speak freely about what happened.[66] The director of the FSB,Nikolai Patrushev, was summoned to give evidence, but he did not attend the trial.[19] Ten days later, on 26 May 2006, Nur-Pashi Kulayev was sentenced to life imprisonment.[186] Kulayev later disappeared in the Russian prison system.[187] Following questions about whether Kulayev had been killed or died in prison, Russian government officials said in 2007 that he was alive and awaiting the start of his sentence.[188][clarification needed]
Family members of the victims of the attacks have accused the security forces of incompetence, and have demanded that authorities be held accountable. Putin personally promised to theMothers of Beslan group to hold an "objective investigation". On 26 December 2005, Russian prosecutors investigating the siege on the school declared that authorities had made no mistakes whatsoever.[189]
At a press conference with foreign journalists on 6 September 2004, Vladimir Putin rejected the prospect of an open public inquiry, but cautiously agreed with an idea of a parliamentary investigation led by the State Duma, dominated by the pro-Kremlin parties.[190][191]
In November 2004, theInterfax news agency reportedAleksandr Torshin, head of the parliamentary commission, as saying that there was evidence of involvement by "a foreign intelligence agency" (he declined to say which).[192] On 22 December 2006, the Russian parliamentary commission ended their investigation into the incident. Their report concluded that the number of gunmen who stormed the school was 32 and laid much of the blame on the North Ossetian police, stating that there was a severe shortcoming in security measures, but also criticizing authorities for under-reporting the number of hostages involved.[193] In addition, the commission said the attack on the school was premeditated by Chechen terrorist leadership, including the moderate leader Aslan Maskhadov. In another controversial move, the commission claimed that the shoot-out that ended the siege was instigated by the hostage-takers, not security forces.[194] About the "grounded" decision to use flamethrowers, Torshin said that "international law does not prohibit using them against terrorists."[195] Ella Kesayeva, an activist who leads a Beslan support group, suggested that the report was meant as a signal that Putin and his circle were no longer interested in having a discussion about the crisis.[75]
On 28 August 2006, Duma member Yuri Savelyev, a member of the federal parliamentary inquiry panel, publicised his own report which he said proves that Russian forces deliberately stormed the school using maximum force. According to Savelyev, a weapons and explosives expert, special forces fired rocket-propelled grenades without warning as a prelude to an armed assault, ignoring apparently ongoing negotiations. In February 2007, two members of the commission (Savelyev and Yuri Ivanov) denounced the investigation as a cover-up, and the Kremlin's official version of events as fabricated. They refused to approve the Torshin's report.[73]
Three local policemen of thePravoberezhny District ROVD (district militsiya unit) were the only officials put on trial over the massacre. They were charged with negligence in failing to stop gunmen seizing the school.[196] On 30 May 2007, the Pravoberezhny Court's judge granted anamnesty to them. In response, a group of dozens of local women rioted and ransacked the courtroom by smashing windows, overturning furniture, and tearing down a Russian flag. Victims' groups said the trial had been a whitewash designed to protect their superiors from blame.[197] The victims of the siege said they would appeal against the court judgement.[198]
In June 2007, a court inKabardino-Balkaria charged twoMalgobeksky District ROVD police officials, Mukhazhir Yevloyev and Akhmed Kotiyev, with negligence, accusing them of failing to prevent the attackers from setting up their training and staging camp in Ingushetia. The two pleaded innocent,[199] and were acquitted in October 2007. The verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court of Ingushetia in March 2008. The victims said they would appeal the decision to theEuropean Court for Human Rights.[200]
The handling of the siege by Vladimir Putin's administration was criticised by a number of observers and grassroots organisations, amongst them Mothers of Beslan andVoice of Beslan.[201] Soon after the crisis, the independent MPVladimir Ryzhkov blamed "the top leadership" of Russia.[202] Initially, theEuropean Union also criticised the response.[203]
Critics, including Beslan residents who survived the attack and relatives of the victims, focused on allegations that the storming of the school was ruthless. They cite the use of heavy weapons, such as tanks andShmel thermobaric rockets.[81][204][205] Their usage was officially confirmed.[206] TheShmel is a type of thermobaric weapon, described by a source associated with the US military as "just about the most vicious weapon you can imagine – igniting the air, sucking the oxygen out of an enclosed area and creating a massive pressure wave crushing anything unfortunate enough to have lived through the conflagration."[11] Pavel Felgenhauer has gone further and accused the government of also firing rockets from an Mi-24 attack helicopter,[207] a claim that the authorities deny.[81] Some human rights activists claim that at least 80% of the hostages were killed by indiscriminate Russian fire.[10] According to Felgenhauer, "It was not a hostage rescue operation ... but an army operation aimed at wiping out the terrorists."[81]David Satter of theHudson Institute said the incident "presents a chilling portrait of the Russian leadership and its total disregard for human life".[90]
The provincial government and police were criticised by the locals for having allowed the attack to take place, especially since police roadblocks on the way to Beslan were removed shortly before the attack.[208] Many blamed rampant corruption that allowed the attackers to bribe their way through the checkpoints; in fact, this was even what they had openly boasted to their hostages.[66][209][210] Others say the militants took the back roads used by smugglers in collusion with the police.[211]Yulia Latynina alleged that Major Gurazhev was captured after he approached the militants' truck to demand a bribe for what he thought was an oil-smuggling operation.[212] It was also alleged the federal police knew of the time and place of the planned attack; according to internal police documents obtained byNovaya Gazeta, the Moscow MVD knew about the hostage taking four hours in advance, having learned this from a militant captured in Chechnya.[10][213] According to Basayev, the road to Beslan was cleared of roadblocks because the FSB planned to ambush the group later, believing the terrorists' aim was to seize the parliament of North Ossetia in Vladikavkaz.
Critics also charged that the authorities did not organise the siege properly, including failing to keep the scene secure from entry by civilians,[214] while the emergency services were not prepared during the 52 hours of the crisis.[4] The Russian government has been also heavily criticised by many of the local people who, days and even months after the siege, did not know whether their children were alive or dead, as the hospitals were isolated from the outside world.[clarification needed] Two months after the crisis, a local driver named Muran Katsanov found human remains and identity documents[11] in the garbage landfill at the outskirts of Beslan; the discovery prompted further outrage.[215][216]
In addition, there were serious accusations that federal officials had not earnestly tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers (including the alleged threat from Moscow to arrest President Dzasokhov if he came to negotiate) and deliberately provided incorrect and inconsistent reports of the situation to the media.
The report by Yuri Savelyev, a dissenting parliamentary investigator and one of Russia's leading rocket scientists, placed the responsibility for the final massacre on actions of the Russian forces and the highest-placed officials in the federal government.[217] Savelyev's 2006 report, devoting 280 pages to determining responsibility for the initial blast, concludes that the authorities decided to storm the school building, but wanted to create the impression they were acting in response to actions taken by the terrorists.[74][note 9] Savelyev, the only expert on the physics of combustion on the commission, accused Torshin of "deliberate falsification".[90]
A separate public inquiry by the North Ossetian parliament (headed by Kesayev) concluded on 29 November 2005 that both local and federal law enforcement mishandled the situation.[78]
On 26 June 2007, 89 relatives of victims lodged a joint complaint against Russia with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The applicants say their rights were violated both during the hostage-taking and the trials that followed.[199][218] The case was brought by over 400 Russians.[219]
In an April 2017 judgement that supported the prosecutors, the court deemed that Russia's failure to act on "sufficient" evidence about a likely attack on a North Ossetia school had violated the "Right to Life" guaranteed by theEuropean Convention on Human Rights. The court stated the error was made worse by the Russian use of "indiscriminate force".[220] Result were published in April 2017, and found that Russian actions in using tank cannons, flame-throwers and grenade launchers "contributed to the casualties among the hostages", and had "not been compatible with the requirement under Article 2 that lethal force be used "no more than [is] absolutely necessary". The report also said that "The authorities had been in possession of sufficiently specific information of a planned terrorist attack in the area, linked to an educational institution", "nevertheless, not enough had been done to disrupt the terrorists meeting and preparing", or to warn schools or the public.[219][221][222]
The ECHR court in Strasbourg ordered Russia to pay €2.9 million in damages and €88,000 in legal costs. The Court's findings were rejected by the Russian Government.[219][223] Although obligated to accept the ruling because it is a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Kremlin called the ruling "absolutely unacceptable".[220] The Russian government challenged it in a higher chamber: it argued that several of the court's conclusions were "not backed up", but ultimately agreed to the ruling after the complaints were rejected by the Strasbourg-based court.[224]
In resistance to the coverage on foreign television news channels (such asCNN and theBBC), the crisis was not broadcast live by the three major state-owned Russian television networks.[113] The two main state-owned broadcasters, Channel One andRossiya, did not interrupt their regular programming following the school seizure.[202] After explosions and gunfire started on the third day,NTV Russia shifted away from the scenes of mayhem to broadcast aWorld War II soap opera.[52] According to theEkho Moskvy ("Echo of Moscow") radio station, 92% of the people polled said that Russian TV channels concealed parts of information.[100]
Russian state-controlled television only reported official information about the number of hostages during the course of the crisis. The figure of 354 people was persistently given, initially reported by Lev Dzugayev (the press secretary of Dzasokhov)[note 10][225] and Valery Andreyev (the chief of the republican FSB). It was later claimed that Dzugayev only disseminated information given to him by "Russian presidential staff who were located in Beslan from 1 September".[63] Torshin laid the blame squarely at Andreyev, for whom he reserved special scorn.[226]
The deliberately false figure had grave consequences for the treatment of the hostages by their angered captors (the hostage-takers were reported saying, "Maybe we should kill enough of you to get down to that number") and contributed to the declaration of a "hunger strike".[41][193] One inquiry has suggested that it may have prompted the militants to kill the group of male hostages shot on the first day.[226] The government disinformation also sparked incidents of violence by the local residents, aware of the real numbers, against the members of Russian and foreign media.[100]
On 8 September 2004, several leading Russian and international human-rights organisations – includingAmnesty International,Human Rights Watch,Memorial, andMoscow Helsinki Group – issued a joint statement in which they pointed out the responsibility that Russian authorities bore in disseminating false information:
We are also seriously concerned with the fact that authorities concealed the true scale of the crisis by,inter alia, misinforming Russian society about the number of hostages. We call on Russian authorities to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances of the Beslan events which should include an examination of how authorities informed the whole society and the families of the hostages. We call on making the results of such an investigation public."[100]
The Moscow daily tabloidMoskovskij Komsomolets ran a rubric headlined "Chronicle of Lies", detailing various initial reports put out by government officials about the hostage taking, which later turned out to be false.[107]
The lateNovaya Gazeta journalistAnna Politkovskaya, who had negotiated during the 2002 Moscow siege, was twice prevented by the authorities from boarding a flight. When she eventually succeeded, she fell into a coma after being poisoned aboard an aeroplane bound forRostov-on-Don.[100][227]
According to the report by theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), several correspondents were detained or otherwise harassed after arriving in Beslan (including Russians Anna Gorbatova and Oksana Semyonova fromNovye Izvestia, Madina Shavlokhova fromMoskovskij Komsomolets,Elena Milashina fromNovaya Gazeta, and Simon Ostrovskiy fromThe Moscow Times). Several foreign journalists were also briefly detained, including a group of journalists from thePolishGazeta Wyborcza, FrenchLibération, and BritishThe Guardian. Many foreign journalists were exposed to pressure from the security forces and materials were confiscated from TV crewsZDF andARD (Germany),AP Television News (US), andRustavi 2 (Georgia). The crew of Rustavi 2 was arrested; the Georgian Minister of Health said that the correspondent Nana Lezhava, who had been kept for five days in the Russian pre-trial detention centers, had been poisoned with dangerouspsychotropic drugs (like Politkovskaya, Lezhava had passed out after being given a cup of tea). The crew from another Georgian TV channel,Mze, was expelled from Beslan.[100]
Raf Shakirov, chief editor of the Russia's leading newspaper,Izvestia, was forced to resign after criticism by the major shareholders of both style and content of the issue of 4 September 2004.[228] In contrast to the less emotional coverage by other Russian newspapers,Izvestia had featured large pictures of dead or injured hostages. It also expressed doubts about the government's version of events.[229]
The video tape made by the hostage-takers and given to Ruslan Aushev on the second day was declared by the officials as being "blank".[230] Aushev himself did not watch the tape before he handed it to government agents. A fragment of tape shot by the hostage-takers was shown on Russian NTV television several days after the crisis.[231] Another fragment of a tape shot by the hostage-takers was acquired by media and publicised in January 2005.[34][209]
In July 2007, the Mothers of Beslan asked the FSB to declassify video and audio archives on Beslan, saying there should be no secrets in the investigation.[232] They did not receive any official answer to this request.[233] However, the Mothers received an anonymous video, which they disclosed saying it might prove that the Russian security forces started the massacre by firing rocket-propelled grenades on the besieged building.[234] The film had been kept secret by the authorities for nearly three years before being officially released by the Mothers on 4 September 2007.[235][236] The graphic film apparently shows the prosecutors and military experts surveying the unexploded shrapnel-based bombs of the militants and structural damage in the school in Beslan shortly after the massacre. Footage shows a large hole in the wall of the sports hall, with a man saying, "The hole in the wall is not from this [kind of] explosion. Apparently someone fired [there]", adding that many victims bear no sign of shrapnel wounds. In another scene filmed next morning, a uniformed investigator points out that most of the IEDs in the school actually did not go off, and then points out a hole in the floor which he calls a "puncture of an explosive character".[237]
In general, the criticism was rejected by the Russian government. President Vladimir Putin specifically dismissed the foreign criticism asCold War mentality and said that the West wants to "pull the strings so that Russia won't raise its head."[113]
The Russian government defended the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry, arguing that it was used only after surviving hostages escaped from the school. However, this contradicts the eyewitness accounts, including by the reporters and former hostages.[238] According to the survivors and other witnesses, many hostages were seriously wounded and could not possibly escape by themselves, while others were kept by the terrorists as human shields and moved through the building.[58]
DeputyProsecutor General of Russia Nikolai Shepel, acting as deputy prosecutor at the trial of the sole surviving attacker, found no fault with the security forces in handling the siege, "According to the conclusions of the investigation, the expert commission did not find any violations that could be responsible for the harmful consequences."[29][239] Shepel acknowledged that commandos fired flamethrowers, but said this could not have sparked the fire that caused most of the deaths;[85] he also said that the troops did not usenapalm during the attack.[13]
To address doubts, in 2005, Putin launched a Duma parliamentary investigation led byAleksandr Torshin,[240] resulting in the report which criticised the federal government only indirectly[241] and instead put blame for "a whole number of blunders and shortcomings" on local authorities.[242] The findings of the federal and the North Ossetian commissions differed widely in many main aspects.[74][243]
In 2005, previously unreleased documents by the national commission in Moscow were made available toDer Spiegel. According to the paper, "instead of calling for self-criticism in the wake of the disaster, the commission recommended the Russian government to crack down harder."[134]
Three local top officials resigned in the aftermath of the tragedy:[note 11][244]
Five Ossetian and Ingush police officers were tried in the local courts; all of them were subsequently amnestied or acquitted in 2007. As of December 2009, none of the Russian federal officials suffered consequences in connection with the Beslan events.
Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole survivor of the 32 attackers, claimed that attacking a school and targeting mothers and young children was not merely coincidental, but was deliberately designed for maximum outrage with the purpose of igniting a wider war in the Caucasus. According to Kulayev, the attackers hoped that the mostlyOrthodox Ossetians would attack their mostly Muslim Ingush and Chechen neighbours to seek revenge, encouraging ethnic and religious hatred and strife throughout the North Caucasus.[248] North Ossetia and Ingushetia had previously been involved in a brief but bloody conflict in 1992 over disputed land in the North OssetianPrigorodny District, leaving up to 1,000 dead and some 40,000 to 60,000displaced persons, mostly Ingush. Indeed, shortly after the Beslan massacre, 3,000 people demonstrated inVladikavkaz calling for revenge against the ethnic Ingush.[40]
The expected backlash against neighbouring nations failed to materialise on a massive scale. In one noted incident, a group of ethnic Ossetian soldiers led by a Russian officer detained two Chechen Spetsnaz soldiers and executed one of them.[249] In July 2007, the office of the presidential envoy for theSouthern Federal DistrictDmitry Kozak announced that a North Ossetian armed group engaged in abductions as retaliation for the Beslan school hostage-taking.[40][103][250] FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alikhan Kalimatov, sent from Moscow to investigate these cases, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in September 2007.[251]
In September 2005, the self-proclaimedfaith healer and miracle-makerGrigory Grabovoy claimed he could resurrect the murdered children. Grabovoy was arrested and indicted of fraud in April 2006, amidst the accusations that he was being used by the government as a tool to discredit theMothers of Beslan group.[252]
In January 2008, theVoice of Beslan group, which in the previous year had been court-ordered to disband, was charged by Russian prosecutors with "extremism" for their appeals in 2005 to theEuropean Parliament to help establish an international investigation.[205][253][254] This was soon followed with other charges, some of them relating to the 2007 court incident. As of February 2008, the group was charged in total of four different criminal cases.[255]
Russian PatriarchAlexius II's plans to build an Orthodox church as part of the Beslan monument caused a serious conflict between theOrthodox Church and the leadership of theRussian Muslims in 2007.[256] Beslan victims organisations also spoke against the project, and many in Beslan want the ruins of the school to be preserved, opposing the government plan to demolish them.[257]
The attack at Beslan was met with international abhorrence and universal condemnation. Countries and charities around the world donated to funds set up to assist the families and children that were involved in the Beslan crisis.
At the end of 2004, theInternational Foundation For Terror Act Victims had raised over $1.2 million with a goal of $10 million.[258] TheIsraeli government offered help inrehabilitating freed hostages, and during Russian Prime MinisterMikhail Fradkov's visit toChina in November 2005, the Chinese Health Ministry announced that they were sending doctors to Beslan, and offered free medical care to any of the victims who still needed treatment.[259] The then mayor ofCroatia's capitalZagreb,Vlasta Pavić, offered free vacations to theAdriatic Sea to the Beslan children.[260]
On 1 September 2005,UNICEF marked the first anniversary of the Beslan school tragedy by calling on all adults to shield children from war and conflict.[261]
Maria Sharapova and many other female Russian tennis players wore black ribbons during the2004 US Open in memory of the tragedy.
In August 2005, two new schools were built in Beslan, paid for by the Moscow government.[262]
bringing the total death toll to 700, a Beslan activist said. ... Two other former hostages died of their wounds last year and another died last August, which had brought the overall death toll to 700 -- a figure that does not include the hostage-takers.Cite error: The named reference "last_casualty" was defined multiple times with different content (see thehelp page).
Of those who died, 186 were children.
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